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Music Review  Götterdämmerung – The Twilight of the Gods
I'd forgotten just how spectacular this opera is musically! I don't simply mean the well known sections, like Siegfried's Funeral March, but the way that Wagner weaves his leitmotifs together to tell the story at a different level from the words being sung; or sometimes to comment on the action, by revealing in the music, the forces at work behind the drama. I will never again say that the first scene with the Norns is boring! This time, listening with a more educated ear, Wagner's genius and hard work just blew me away!
He stated in the interval that he was trying to brush away the accumulated heavy Germanic tradition of Wagner performances. Occasionally this led him into taking a few tempi rather fast, sometimes pushing the singers to accelerate their phrasing. At the end the orchestra was, understandably, tired resulting in a few untidy brass chords but it was a long live performance!.
Once you have decided to take this route, which unsurprisingly has had its mechanical problems, you’re more or less forced to use it throughout. So then the quality of the video, or the graphics, becomes supremely important. This was mixed. I got tired of the wood grain effect associated with the Gibichung’s hall, and at times I couldn’t see the relevance of moving some of the segments but not others. I thought that the ending of the whole opera, when Valhalla burns, was very weak. The flames were not convincing, and the collapsing of a few plaster gods into dust at an upper level was a very poorly conceived idea, a real damp squib. I also hated Grane, Brünnhilde's mechanical metal horse, which was ponderous and unnecessary. It should be quickly put out to grass! Why not have it on video in the distance? That way it could also fly instead of slowly rolling along! There should also have been much more use of traditional stage lighting as a backdrop to the projected images. We are all so used to fantastic CGI effects that there is much more scope for creativity using projection than was demonstrated in this production. But rather than try to compete with movies, I think that for future productions using this system they ought to employ a contemporary artist to design the projected graphics and videos, looking for a more abstract effect. Perhaps they should use someone like David Hockney, who did such a brilliant job for the Magic Flute years ago. But if you’re lucky enough to have booked tickets to see
the whole Ring cycle in the spring don’t let these criticisms
put you off. Based on this simulcast I can assure you that you’ll
enjoy it! The music and images are still going round in my head
days later!
Story:
John Preedy
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